Briggs withdraws subpoena against inewsource

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Cory Briggs, an attorney at the center of an inewsource investigation, has withdrawn a subpoena he served on inewsource’s executive director in April.

The subpoena sought information about a statement San Diego City Attorney Jan Goldsmith made to inewsource reporters in February concerning Briggs’ personal and professional partner, Sarichia Cacciatore, and her role as vice president of the Briggs Law Corp. The statement was,

“It was stated by Cory Briggs as a fact… and we have verified that.”

Earlier that week, inewsource published a story examining Briggs’ relationship with Cacciatore, a former environmental biologist for Helix Environmental Planning, a city-contracted company whose work Briggs had sued over. After inewsource uncovered the potential conflict, the City Attorney’s Office found evidence that Cacciatore was also vice president of her husband’s law firm. Helix agreed to pay the city $143,000 to settle all claims related to the conflict in April while Briggs has fought since February to prove that Goldsmith’s office leaked confidential information to the reporters.

On April 20, inewsource’s legal counsel, Guylyn Cummins, served Briggs with a letter explaining state and federal laws protect journalists against compelled testimony. Briggs did not respond until May 5 after a trip out of the country.

He offered to withdraw the subpoena in exchange for “a simple declaration from the reporter to whom Mr. Goldsmith made the attributed statement confirming that the statement as reported is in fact what Mr. Goldsmith said.”

inewsource agreed, but when Briggs began to demand additional facts about the interview, Cummins, under a deadline to respond, filed a full motion to quash the subpoena with the court.

At 7:29 p.m., Briggs sent an email to Cummins saying he took the deposition off calendar and withdrew the subpoena because, “Mr. Goldsmith himself sent me a letter that essentially confirms what I hoped to confirm with your organization’s dec or depo.”

inewsource obtained that letter, which can be read in full here. In it, Goldsmith addressed Briggs’ concerns about disseminating confidential material by pointing out that the deposition of Cacciatore — the heart of the matter in all of this — was not confidential under a court order:

“The court’s order protects the identities of SDOG (San Diegans for Open Government) members,” Goldsmith wrote. “As Sarichia Cacciatore is not and has never been a member of SDOG, she is not protected by the order. Nor, is her status as Vice President of your law firm protected by the order.

“Even though the testimony of Ms. Cacciatore was not confidential under the order, our office did not discuss her testimony until after the transcript was made public.”

Briggs did not respond to an inewsource request for comment on Thursday.

Lorie Hearn, executive director of inewsource, said she was happy Briggs withdrew the subpoena but was concerned it took a major legal effort by inewsource attorneys to achieve the result.

“I believe the subpoena was a ruse to distract us from our reporting and to force us to spend money on legal costs,” she said. “inewsource contends the subpoena was in retaliation for the stories we have published over the past two months about Mr. Briggs’ business practices and conflicts of interest.”

Briggs’ subpoena was part of his ongoing case against the city in a San Diegans for Open Government lawsuit filed in 2012 challenging a hotel room surcharge used to fund collective marketing for hoteliers.

San Diegans for Open Government, a nonprofit, is also suing inewsource over alleged issues with its lease at San Diego State University, although for the first time in the organization’s history, Briggs is not representing the group.

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For more than a year inewsource reporters have been investigating Cory Briggs, a well-known San Diego environmental and public-interest lawyer who has made a name for himself suing government agencies and developers under the California Environmental Quality Act.
Reporters combed through thousands of pages of land records, environmental impact reports, invoices and contracts and found highly questionable transactions, potential conflicts of interest and a persistent disregard for state and federal laws. The ongoing investigation quickly prompted action and reaction.
For updates on this project, subscribe to our newsletter below.

Brad Racino. Investigative Reporter

Racino is an investigative reporter and videographer at inewsource.

Since 2012, he has produced work for print, radio and TV on a variety of topics for inewsource, including political corruption, transportation, health, trade and surveillance.

In 2013, Racino won both the national IRE award for investigative reporting and the Sol Price Award for responsible journalism.

In 2014, Racino shared a second IRE award, the Columbia Journalism School's Meyer "Mike" Berger award, two Edward R. Murrow awards, a national Emmy award nomination and a national Association of Health Care Journalists award with colleague Joanne Faryon for “An Impossible Choice.”

Brooke Williams. Investigative Reporter

Williams is a veteran award-winning investigative reporter who specializes in data-driven journalism.

She is currently a contributor to The New York Times, and her work has appeared in the Center for Public Integrity, inewsource, the San Diego Union-Tribune, KPBS, ABC World News and the New Republic. She wrote a chapter in "The Buying of the President 2004," a national bestseller, and built the first nationwide database of allegations of local prosecutorial misconduct in 2002 to help report and write "Harmful Error: Investigating America's local prosecutors."

She won the George Polk Award in 2003 and was a finalist for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists in 2005 and the Investigative Reporters and Editors Award in 2012.